People face choices throughout their personal and business lives. Some choices are nearly invisible and instantaneous; others involve extended deliberation. Some choices are made by one person alone; most involve consultation with others.
Most choices relate to things a person or group of people wish to get or do. Some involve alternative conclusions to treat as a basis for action, such as competing hypotheses about a medical diagnosis or a business strategy.
Different types of systems to support certain types of collaboration and decision making have been developed. For example, a collaborative database system is described in United States Patent Application Publication No. 2002/0049738 (Epstein). A decision support system using bilateral and multilateral matching techniques is described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,915,269 and 7,184,968 and in United States Patent Application Publication No. US 2007/0162319. Each of these publications and patents is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.